


Stubborn

by JoAsakura



Series: The Language of Memory [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 14:57:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7391824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel Reyes is a stubborn son of a bitch</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stubborn

Gabriel remembers the sensation of the first days of his “resurrection” more than he actually remembers the days themselves.

Whatever Angela had done had left him in a state not unlike Lena’s - somewhere in between one world and the next. Fighting for consciousness and cohesion.

A monster of smoke and shadow trapped in a jar.

Those days hadn’t hurt - not precisely. But they had felt unutterably *wrong*. As he learned to piece himself back together, trying to layer skin and muscle and bone back in place in the right order.

*Those* days hurt. He remembers those days, his reflection in the glass, skin shifting like an alien thing exposing bone and nerves.

And Angela, always Angela, looking at data but unable to provide any succor, any relief, any *mercy*.

It was only because Gabriel Reyes was one of the single most stubborn sons of bitches to ever have lived that he learned he didn’t have to stay in that jar. He could step, phase, move like darkness and mist. Not dead, not alive. A wraith. A monster.

And for what? Jack was dead.

All his ego, all his rage. None of it had mattered.

It took so much longer to learn to bring things with him when he phased. The armour that hid his skirling flesh. His weapons. That had been the worst. Reforming with a gun stuck in his ribs, his mask stuck in his neck. But he practiced until he learned to layer Kevlar and polymers and ceramics over skin and muscle and bone.

Even when he’d made the cohesion stick, got the shadow shifting down though, he was still decaying, regenerating over and over again. The mask (a skull, an owl, things that go bump in the night) hid that, hid who he was. Let him become something else. And he was going to find who destroyed Overwatch, who killed Jack. And he was going to make them pay.

He was going to make everyone pay.

And that was fine until the monkey had called him on it, had proven Jack was still alive. Had Fucking Seen Jack and Reaper hadn’t been able to take his mask off for days, suddenly forgetting how to keep himself together on any level.

~~  
He’s on another rooftop, pinned down by turret fire when he sees Jack out of the corner of his mask’s HUD, backing towards an edge.

Reaper feels what would have been a sick twist if he’d actually had functional intestines - Jack’s visor is smashed and Gabriel knows how much Soldier:76 depends on it. How bad Jack’s vision has gotten. (He sees well enough when they’re close. Too close for safety, but if he can see that, he declines to mention it).

In the dark, gunfire everywhere, without the visor, Jack is virtually blind.

They’re outgunned, cut off from the rest of their team and air support won’t get there in time as his heel hits the edge of the roof.

Reaper knows three truths at once. 1) Jack, being one of the other most stubborn sons of bitches ever born, will gladly take the fall if it means he’s killed the bastards he’s shooting at. 2) He himself has never tried to shadow step with a passenger 3) Reaper will be damned if he doesn’t try.

He’s already in motion as he sees Soldier take a hit to the shoulder, lose his balance “GO LIMP!” He roars in their comms and he’s not even sure why. (Go limp, it’s what you do, don’t tense up, don’t do the impact’s work for it) Moves as fast as shadow and smoke possibly can, reforming around Jack for a moment as they freefall.

“Reaper.” Jack says, and that single word conveys so much disapproval and surprise that Gabriel almost laughs as he tries to phase them both out.

And for a second it works, maybe, but it’s like biting down on an electrical cord and it hurts, and it takes everything to remember which are his parts and which are Jack’s and it’s too much and he’s prepared to absorb as much of the impact as he can when Pharah grabs them both.

“Nice to see you two working together, even if it was foolish.” She chides in their comms.

“He’s just a stubborn son of a bitch.” Soldier:76 says before Reaper can say anything.

And for a second, Gabriel lets himself hold Jack a little tighter.


End file.
